Everyone has a quilt story, but the quilts themselves also have a story to tell. You may have seen photo memory quilts and t-shirt quilts which recount events, memorialize loved ones, or celebrate passages. But quilts can tell stories in other ways through design, color, block choice, size, and fabric selection. Come along on this story-telling journey and see what some of the quilts in your family have to say. If we listen closely we can hear the voices of the quilters speak to us through the cloth. Enjoy this humorous and poignant story-telling journey. [60 minutes]

NEW in 2019! Runner Up - The Table Runner from Bureau Cloth to Candle Mat

A lighthearted history of the table runner as a quilt form. These sweet decorative quilts have been around for longer than you think, and serve both a useful and decorative purpose. Presentation includes a power-point and a trunk show featuring a wide variety of table runners, along with ideas and inspiration for creating these fun and fast projects from your own pattern library. [45-60 minutes] A half day of full day table runner workshop is available featuring pre-cuts or orphan blocks.

The One Patch Quilt Renaissance

The one-patch quilt block — tumbler, hexagon, triangle, apple core, clam shell, or even the yo-yo — began as a way to efficiently use up household fabric scraps and make the best use of available time to hand piece. These quilts fell out of popularity in the 20th century with the availability of low cost reliable sewing machines and low cost fabric. Time and labor-intensive hand piecing of scraps evolved, and in the 21st century with the popularity of English foundation piecing the one-patch (sometimes called a Charm quilt) quilt has experienced a renaissance! This interesting lecture looks at the one-patch quilt through history showing how its resurgence in popularity is one of the primary influences behind the Modern Quilt movement. Trunk show of historical and modern one-patch quilts and the stories that make them compelling. [60 minutes] Half day and full day one-patch workshops available.

The Hexagon & Beyond: Not Just Your Grandmother’s Flower Garden!

This hilarious program looks at the history of the hexagon shape in quilts, its incredible variety, and the versatility of this wonderful traditional pattern. A trunk show of Reeze’s huge collection of historical and contemporary hexagon and grandmother’s flower garden quilts will never have you looking at this pattern in quite the same way again. [60 minutes] A half day or full day workshop in One-Patch piecing techniques is also available.

Color Confidence for Quilters: Trust Your Hunches!

“I’m just not good with color” is a common refrain heard from quilters. But with a little color confidence any quilter can become a color whiz. This entertaining program explores basic color theory from the quilter’s perspective and shows how to develop color confidence drawing on your own instincts, intuition, and preferences. The program includes a Power Point presentation along with a trunk show of quilts illustrating basic color concepts. It is a fun and interactive program. [60 minutes] A half day Color Confidence workshop is also available.

Inspiration is in the Air!

This “inspiring” program demonstrates the surprising and often hilarious places and things that produce inspiration for quilts. From the tile on floors in public restrooms to architectural details to the flower garden in your yard, quilt inspiration is literally in the air. This highly entertaining talk includes a Power Point presentation featuring a wide variety of inspiration sources and the quilts that resulted from them. An interactive segment in the talk gets the audience involved in the design process with some unexpected inspiration sources! [60 minutes.]

Odd Blocks: Settings that Rock!

This interactive lecture/workshop includes a Power Point presentation showing lots of examples of settings using blocks of various sizes or blocks in unusual settings. Using Reeze's clever story-based setting system, block sets are put on a design wall and participants are asked to help devise new and clever ways to set them. Audience members are invited to bring sets of blocks to incorporate in this a one-of-a-kind presentation which will having you laughing, and looking at blocks differently than you have in the past. Fun and fast-paced. [60 minutes]

EQ8 – Designing Quilts on the Computer

“Ain’t Technology Grand?” This program looks at the incredibly powerful quilt designing software, EQ8 by the Electric Quilt Co. A Power point lecture explores the many things this software program can do, and the ways it can assist quilters (with little or no computer experience) to design quilts, quilt blocks, explore fabric and setting ideas, and create instructions for making original quilt designs. A virtual trunk show is included in the presentation along with a number of actual quilts designed by Reeze with Electric Quilt software. [60 minutes] A half day or full day EQ8 workshop is also available.